It’s long been noted that human beings tend to gather in groups they identify with, often moving seamlessly between the circles, sometimes conflicted about doing so. While we homo sapiens may all basically be biologically identical inside, having been dropped from the same mold, once we are plopped upon the earth to congregate with others, bonds of all sorts form.
There are the obvious racial and ethnic ones – skin hues, geographical isolation resulting in developing one’s own culture, which could be national and/or religious, etc. The ties that bind members of the same sexes together. Say, like, shared experiences of childbirth for women. Then there’s the earthy, juvenile, and impenetrable world of the masculine mind with their rituals of (as we have always called it) scummy male bonding. The burps, fart jokes, and smack talk that start the second three or more gather, and their…